UK: Labour reinstates Jew-bashing councillor

Via Guido Fawkes:

Labour has lifted the suspension of a councillor who Guido revealed had written a string of anti-Semitic social media posts. Ilyas Aziz was suspended in May after calling for Jews to “relocate” out of the Middle East, comparing Jews to Nazis, sharing multiple anti-Semitic Rothschilds memes and a “drinking blood” blood libel slur. Cllr Aziz now says:

“Can resume my Labour Party activities now that my suspension lifted. Thanks to all who stood by me in difficult times.”

This wasn’t a one-off retweet, Aziz is a serial offender and the sort of person Corbyn’s Labour evidently want in their party. Expect more anti-Semites to be welcomed back in… 

UPDATE: Stephen Silverman from the Campaign Against Antisemitism told Guido: 

“Away  from the glare of public scrutiny, Labour has quietly lifted the suspension of yet another virulent antisemite. Once again, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the openly-expressed hatred of the Jewish people merits no more than a slap on the wrist in a party that refuses to allow any transparency around its internal disciplinary processes. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party is not fit for Jews or those opposed to racism.”

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Spain: Valencian Country joins BDS campaign

Via IUMV Press (h/t CFCA):

Valencia's local government said on Friday that with the approval of the representatives from different political parties, they have joined the international campaign of boycotting the Zionist regime and the investments in it (BDS).

These parties are willing to support the inalienable rights of the Palestinians including freedom and ownership of their lands and natural resources, as well as having the right to end the Israeli aggression. After joining the “ELAI” campaign, the local government said that this non-violent campaign is created by the Palestinian nation for gaining their inalienable rights which are approved by the international laws.

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France: 65% drop in anti-Semitic incidents

Via Arutz 7:

There is a significant drop in anti-Semitic incidents in France over the last year, according to claims made by leaders of major Jewish organizations in France.

The organizations say that despite the fact that 2015 saw a rise in anti-Semitic incidents, the past year shows a 65% decrease in the number of anti-Semitic incidents perpetrated.

Previously anti-Semitism, both in the form of hate language as well as violent attacks, had been on the rise in France in recent years.

The organizations based their conclusions on widespread surveys conducted over the period of the 2016 calendar year. According to official government data presented by the newspaper 'Le Figaro', if in the course of 2015 there were 808 anti-Semitic acts and threats, in 2016 their number had decreased to 294.

Francis Kalifat, the president of the Council of Jewish organizations, the Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), was bouyed by the news but said that the numbers are not yet final and should be taken with caution. He also added that this was not necessarily significant news since "curses and anti-Semitic threats have become so commonplace that people do not file complaints anymore about them."

Despite the fact that the Jewish organizations urged caution with regard to the emerging statistics about anti-Semitic incidents, they did express their appreciation for the police's efficiency regarding the protection of Jewish institutions. "There is no doubt that both the police and military are demonstrating effectiveness in deterring potential anti-semitic crimes," said the organizations.

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UK: Gay couple assaulted in anti-Semitic, homophobic attack

Via Times of Israel:

A young gay couple from Britain was assaulted while celebrating Christmas by thugs who picked on them because one of them was Jewish, a Yorkshire news website reported.

The assault occurred on December 25 outside a pub in the municipality of Thornaby, in North Yorkshire, England, according to an article published last week by the Gazette Live. Jayson Homer, 20, and his 21-year-old partner, who did not want to be named, were attacked and moderately injured outside the Jolly Farmers pub by a gang that harassed Homer’s partner for being Jewish.

The 21-year-old said: “At first a girl in the group started taking the mick out of me for being Jewish. Then another lad from the group came over saying being Jewish was a race. I was disagreeing with him and it was just a little debate really at first.”

But then the girl “started shouting ‘queer’ at me. Every time I went to the toilet someone said it while I was walking past,” he said. Homer and his partner and another friend left the pub but were followed by the alleged attackers, who punched them and hit them with bottles outside the establishment.

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Ukrainian marchers in Kiev chant ‘Jews out’

Via Times of Israel:

Ukrainian nationalists in Kiev chanted “Jews out” in German at a New Year’s Day march celebrating the birthday of a Nazi collaborator whose troops killed thousands of Jews.

Thousands attended the event in the center of the Ukrainian capital celebrating Stepan Bandera, a leader of Ukraine’s nationalist movement in the 1930s and ’40s. They held up his portrait while an unidentified person shouted the anti-Semitic slogan on a loudspeaker, prompting many participants to repeat it, a video published by the Federal News Agency showed.

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UK: 'Israel is in the front line against radical Islam' and the moral failure of many Britons

Tis type of editorial is very unusual in Europe.

Via The Times (editorial by Tim Montgomerie)

The UN’s lack of balance on the Middle East is monstrous 

Whenever the world’s only Jewish-majority state affronts their sense of morality tens of thousands of Britons march through London.  But, revealingly, they’ve turned a blind eye to Syria’s barrel-bombing of civilians and its illegal use of chemical weapons.  

The moral failure of many Britons is multiplied at the United Nations, supposedly the world’s home of human rights. Over the past decade the UN has condemned Syria eight times but has 223 times attacked the nation in which, if you are Christian, homosexual or other minority, you are probably safer than anywhere in the Middle East. In his final speech as secretary-general even Ban Ki Moon admitted this imbalance was “absurd”. “Monstrous” would be my description.  

The UN’s one-sided approach was on display again with a motion demanding an end to settlement-building by Israelis. Thanks to the UK and, more surprisingly, the US, it was allowed to pass. While construction in disputed territories does undermine peace prospects the focus on the issue has been engineered by Palestinians and diverts attention from their failings.  

Bigger barriers to peace include polling that finds at least one million Palestinians view Islamic State positively. Then there’s Hamas, the proscribed group that runs Gaza, and its charter’s genocidal call to kill Jews.  Or, if the UN is really looking for root causes, how about the antisemitic “educational” materials circulating in schools in Gaza and the West Bank?  

When you are surrounded by people who want you dead, Israelis can’t be blamed for not rushing to repeat what happened after their 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. Vacated settlements became launchpads for missile attacks.  

I’ve visited the bomb shelters that Israeli schoolchildren scurry to when alarms sound. What those who deserted Israel at the UN miss, including Barack Obama and Theresa May, is that today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be understood within the context of the radicalisation of the region.  

Israel is in the front line against radical Islam and, in the words of the author Sam Harris: “We are all living in Israel, it’s just some of us haven’t realised it yet.”

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Hungary: Jobbik chapter protests party's Hanukkah greeting

Via Ynet News (h/t Honestly Concerned):

Hungary's once virulently anti-Semitic Jobbik party tried to show a more tolerant face this year by sending Hanukkah greetings to local Jews. Neither their rabbi nor some Jobbik members appreciated the gesture.

(...)

Although the party does appear to be softening its strident nationalist tone, its recent history of anti-Semitic tactics—such as denouncing Israel and demanding lists of Hungarian Jews who pose a "national security risk"—seems too fresh to be overcome easily.

In his greeting for Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, Vona wrote: "We wish this time of reflection and joy offers a chance of spiritual renewal and, like the celebration of light, emanates real brightness that can show the way."

A Jobbik chapter in the Budapest suburb of Vecsés protested on Facebook, saying, "Jobbik Vecsés does NOT greet Jews on the occasion of Hanukkah (or what the f***) ... If anyone might have that crazy idea, our organisation will not support them!"
Köves, a rabbi of the Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch movement, also gave the Jobbik greetings the cold shoulder.
"We normally appreciate such greetings, but the greetings from you, the leaders of Jobbik, rather surprised and confused us," he wrote in an open letter to Vona. "I think you would do better to make these gestures at the forums you have used to spread hate, filth and darkness, not light."

Vona told the daily Magyar Nemzet on Friday that the response by the Vecsés Jobbik chapter was unacceptable and he would expel the members who posted the slur. "Nobody who talks like that has a place in this party," he said.
To Köves, Vona wrote that he wanted to "build bridges not walls" and vowed to work for reconciliation between Hungarian Christians and Jews.

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Netherlands: Editor says circumcision is genital mutilation

Via Times of Israel:

A major insurer in the Netherlands defended its coverage of circumcision in boys younger than 18 for religious reasons amid criticism of the practice and the impact of Islam in society.

Zilveren Kruis (Silver Cross), which is the kingdom’s largest insurer, included religious circumcision in its 2017 brochure published earlier this month and then defended it in a statement published on its website Tuesday.

“We are seeing that some of the insured parties want to be circumcised or have their boys circumcised,” the agency wrote in replying to “various questions over why some complementary plans include reimbursement for non-medical circumcision,” as Zilveren Kruis defined it.

On Tuesday, René van Rijckevorsel, the acting editor-in-chief of the conservative Elsevier weekly, wrote on Twitter that Zilveren Kruis is encouraging female genital mutilation. After Zilveren Kruis clarified that their insurance covers only males, van Rijckevorsel said he considered this, too, “mutilation.”

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European diplomats meet with Hamas, express 'positive position'

When  the EU court ruled that Hamas was not a terror organization, European countries hurried to explain this was just a 'bureaucratic matter'.

Via al-Monitor:

In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, Hamas' foreign relations chief Osama Hamdan revealed that several weeks ago in Qatar, the movement's leadership met a delegation of high-ranking European diplomats. He expressed optimism about a European decision to strike Hamas from its list of terrorist organizations.

(...)

Hamdan:  Hamas is keen to maintain balanced and open relations at the regional and international levels. It has succeeded over the past three decades since its founding in 1987 to establish channels of communication with several Arab, Islamic and Western states. It now has a wide network of political and diplomatic relations, but the United States has exerted pressure on many countries, influencing them not to cooperate with Hamas’ efforts to build relations.

Hamas today has a good communications system, including many countries other than Arab and Islamic countries. It has relations with the Russian Federation, Brazil in Latin America, Nigeria and South Africa on the African continent and China, Malaysia and Indonesia in Asia. On the European continent, Hamas has strong ties with Switzerland and Norway. It also has good ties with three other European countries that prefer not to be open about this relationship to avoid any embarrassment with Washington.

(...)

Al-Monitor:  News has been recently spreading among Hamas circles about the possibility of striking Hamas’ name off the European Union's list of terrorist organizations. What is new on this subject? What about your latest meetings with European officials?

Hamdan:  Hamas has won a legal battle, as the General Court of the European Union had decided in 2014 to annul EU measures maintaining Hamas on the European list of terrorist organizations, and we are still waiting for the European political decision to implement the court ruling. We believe that this positive decision in favor of Hamas is approaching day by day.

Hamas has held a series of meetings with European political circles, most recently in the first week of November 2016 in Qatar, when the head of the movement’s political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, and a Hamas leadership delegation met a high-level European delegation, including European Foreign Ministry officials. The two sides discussed various topics, and the European delegation expressed a positive position toward Hamas, although the visit was not covered by the media.

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Sweden says antisemitism accusations are 'clearly not serious'

Sweden found an easy way to deal with antisemitism.

Via The Local:

 A spokesperson for Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallström has hit back at a Jewish human rights organization ranking some of her comments among the most anti-Semitic or anti-Israel remarks of 2016.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), which is headquartered in Los Angeles, lists the Swedish minister's comments in eighth place in its ranking of the “ten worst global anti-Semitic/anti-Israel incidents”.

(...)

In its ranking the SWC accuses Wallström, “whose consistently one-sided criticism of the Jewish State has outraged Israelis” of “worr[ying] about terrorists not their victims”.

It also notes that relations between Sweden and Israel have been strained for some time, mentioning Sweden's recognition of Palestine as a state shortly after Sweden's current centre-left government took office in 2014. “Relations between Israel and Sweden plummeted last year after [Wallström] attributed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a major reason for growing Islamist radicalism,” it adds.

A spokesperson for the Swedish foreign minister hit back at the centre on Wednesday.

“The list is clearly not serious,” wrote Erik Wirkensjö in an e-mail to public broadcaster SVT. “It mixes up anti-Semitism and criticism of the State of Israel's politics and puts President Barack Obama at number one.”

“To superficially and casually, as this list does, accuse political leaders of anti-Semitism risks undermining the important fight against anti-Semitism. Sweden's government is active in the fight against anti-Semitism and is for sustainable peace and a two-state solution.”

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France: Hamas terrorists are called "combattants" by Le Figaro newspaper

Via Le Figaro:

In an article reporting the decision by the Israeli government to bury Hamas terrorists killed during attacks and not to return the bodies to Hamas, Le Figaro (with Reuters) terms the Hamas terrorists as "combattants". The title reads "Israel keeps the bodies of Palestinian combattants".  

Only in the last paragraph "terrorist attacks" are mentioned.

Obviously when "combattants" operate in France - killing and maiming civilians - they are terrorists.  

Hamas terrorists

German Foreign Minister launches strong attack against Israel

Via Benjamin Weinthal Twitter:

German foreign minister Steinmeier says 1) Israel is not a democracy 2) Trump is a "hate preacher" 3) Happy Hanukkah

Via Jerusalem Post (Ben Weinthal):

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a staunch proponent of the Iran nuclear deal, has slammed Israel in a series of tweets and statements since last Friday’s Security Council resolution condemning Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.

In a statement issued to Germany’s largest circulation daily, Bild, after the UN resolution, the Foreign Ministry claimed that “a democratic Israel is only achievable through a two-state-solution.” The statement prompted the editor-in-chief of Bild’s digital outlet, veteran journalist Julian Reichelt, to express astonishment at the harsh wording.

In response to Reichelt’s criticism, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffan Seibert wrote on his Twitter feed: “Israel is a Jewish democratic state.” 

Steinmeier, a Social Democratic politician who is jockeying to be the next president of Germany, later said on Twitter: “Israeli settlements in occupied territories jeopardize possibility of peace process.” 

The same English-language tweet was issued again. The flurry of messages attacking Israel appeared on the German- and English-language Twitter feeds of the Berlin-based Foreign Ministry. 

Steinmeier also endorsed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Wednesday speech, writing that the “speech is a warning and a reminder that the #2StateSolution must not become an empty phrase. #MiddleEast.” (...)

Steinmeier had lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015 for his “very coarse” criticism of the Iran nuclear deal. Steinmeier, in an unusual attack on an US presidential candidate, slammed Donald Trump as a “hate preacher.” 

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, who teaches political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, “In many ways, the Obama-Kerry perception of the conflict has been shaped by European conventional wisdom. So it is not surprising to see European leaders embracing Kerry’s speech. In Germany, Foreign Minister Steinmeier has been particularly critical of Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu (taking Germany farther away from its post-Holocaust role).”

Steinberg, who is president of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, added, “Steinmeier, like powerful German NGOs such as Brot fur die Welt, [‘Bread for the World’] echoes the Palestinian victimization narrative. In addition, Steinmeier’s personal attacks on Netanyahu reflect German eagerness to do business with Iran, which was facilitated by Kerry.” 

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Germany: Anti-Semitism on the rise, but no anti-Semites to be found

Remember when it was so fashionable, a few years ago, to say So long, Israel; Hello, Berlin?

Anti-semitism tolerated in Germany (2010): Long-standing anti-Semitic,
anti-Israel exhibit in Cologne city centre 

Via i24NEWS:

A memorial plaque at a Synagogue defaced with right-wing slogans. 

An Israeli tourist denied service by a Burger King employee saying "I don't serve Jews." 

A student being refused a seat on the tram for wearing a Star of David necklace. 

A politician forced to resign after anti-Semitic threats against his family. 

Those are just some of the anti-Semitic incidents recorded in Germany this year by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, an NGO campaigning against right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism. In an attempt to raise awareness for the rise of such incidents, the NGO projected descriptions of the events on buildings in five major German cities over the past few weeks.

“Many people were actually surprised to hear that Jews in Germany are still being attacked on a daily basis,” said Miki Hermer, who initiated the project. 

“They think anti-Semitism is a problem that ended in 1945, that they don't need to worry about that anymore, but we are here to show them that's not true.”  (...)

Nevertheless, experts involved in the fight against anti-Semitism agree that this is a growing problem in Germany. 

“Members of the Jewish community feel constantly under threat – from the right wing, from migrants, from Muslims,” MP Volker Beck, who heads the Germany-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Committee in the German Bundestag, told i24NEWS. (...)

“Public opinion polls show that a third of the population sees Jews as being 'different,' which may not be an aggressive form of anti-Semitism, but it does excludes Jewish citizens from our society. It creates a certain atmosphere, like Jews don't deserve the same rights and respect,” he adds. (...)

Then came the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, also known as Operation Protective Edge, which sparked pro-Palestinian rallies across Germany in which calls of "Jews to the gas" were repeatedly heard.

Since then, argues Hermer, anti-Semitism has been on an upwards trend. (...)

 “Modern anti-Semitism is manifested nowadays mostly through criticism against Israel and Zionism, and through conspiracy theories blaming Jews for manipulating the media and the banking systems,” she explained. “You can find these views anywhere, it's really a symptom of the whole society.”

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Greece: Game firm closes Auschwitz ‘escape room’ following complaints

Via JTA:

They didn't escape

An entertainment company in Greece canceled a game in which players use clues to escape from a room themed around the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

The Rubicon agency, which is located in the northern Athens suburb of Galatsi, in recent weeks advertised the Auschwitz “escape room” on social media. Jews and non-Jews complained it was disrespectful to Holocaust victims, the left-leaning news site Protagon reported Tuesday.

“In frozen Poland, the walls of the crematorium of the infamous Nazi concentration camp for prisoners, primarily of Jewish origin, still reek of burnt human flesh, they say,” a promotional text for the game read. “Take on the role of a prisoner still looking for signs of life from loved ones, dare to stay  in the shadow of the historic crematorium, discover the big secret and escape before you, too, turn into ashes.”

Reached by Protagon, a spokesman of the firm responsible for the game said it had been scrapped and that the decision to create it did not take into account “that this could cause offense.”

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France: Supermarket chain Auchan labels "Israeli colonies" products from settlements

Photos via Alain Legaret:




French supermarket chain Auchan has started  labeling goods produced in Israeli settlements - referred to in France as "colonies" to make it sound like Israel is a colonial (and often) an apartheid country.